Eternal
by Betty More Fishe
Summary: When the entire Bat-clan is away for one reason or another, a group that calls themselves the eternal, kidnaps Jason.  After two weeks of torture they ask one question, "How did you come back from the dead?"
1. Chapter 1

He thought he knew pain. On the streets, as the son of the cheapest whore in town, when he had to steal and do all sorts of shady business just to get some food in his belly, but even then he had better morals than most of the people who lived on the shitty part of town. Then he had been Robin, the Batman's sidekick, and he dished more hits than he took, but he still took some serious pain. Than when the Joker got a hold of him, beat him for hours with that damn crow bar before he blew the whole warehouse up with him still inside. He had died only to come back and have to dig himself out of his own grave, to find out the Clown was still alive and well, and the Batman had gotten the Replacement. Than there had been that time where the drug-dealers he had ripped off managed to drug him and it was a few days before he could escape, even then it had been a month before he could actually function on the level needed when fighting crime. He thought he knew pain, but none of that could even measure up to a fraction of what he was feeling now, what he had been feeling for nearly a month.

The man who had been torturing him for the last month, had said he was Dr. Hugo Strange, which Jason knew was a lie because he had put that bastard away a dozen times and he would have recognized him on sight. If Jason weren't in so much pain he might have admired his kidnappers for their cunning, they grabbed him when he was taking a break from his late nights gallivanting. Bruce was off-world for the Justice League, Tim the Replacement was at some rich kid boarding school, and Dick was on a short vacation with Roy to the Caribbean Islands, Babs was currently trying to pretend like he didn't existed after an incident a few months back where he hacked her systems, and he was pretty sure the other girls of the Bat family where on some case involving the Yakuza in Asia. So the entire bat family was out of the picture, and he had just gotten several drug dealers arrested, so most of his buddies on the bad side of the law would probably say he deserved what he got.

He might have been able to handle the torture, if it hadn't been for the fact that the very first day, his captor had pumped him full of some drugs he hadn't even heard of. So not only could he not pass out and get a few hours rest, but it was like every nerve in his body was ultra sensitive, he couldn't even get himself into a good trans. The first week he had managed to lock his jaw and endure, but by the secant week, he was so thirsty, and when the man put a hot branding iron to his back, again and again, he screamed till his throat gave out. By the end of the secant week, he was so relieved, because he still hurt, but he knew he only had a few hours before he died from malnutrition, because he hadn't eaten anything, he wasn't even sure if he could.

He had felt himself weaken to the point that he thought any secant he would drop off, and that's when his kidnapper hooked him up to an ivy, and he was sure if he hadn't been dehydrated, he would have cried. The next day, when his kidnapper came down for the daily torture ritual, instead of reaching for one of the hundreds of torture devises on the far wall, he pulled a chair over just a few feet in front of Jason and had a seat. Jason at this point had given up struggling to escape, even with the ivy, he didn't have the energy, and the first week he had dislocated both his arms and broke both his thumbs attempting to escape. He had been stripped down to nothing but his skin when he first woke up, so he didn't have anything he could use as a lock pick, he had even tried to used his torturer as a means of escape but he always stayed just out of arms reach, but close enough he could still catch him with a knife.

He knew he had already reached his breaking point, and he was guessing his kidnapper knew it to. The man sat down and pulled a little notebook from his breast-pocket and asked, "Jason, how did you come back from the dead?"

Jason knew he had already reached his breaking point, but that question sent him truly over the edge. He wasn't sure who was more surprised by his reaction, his Captor or him, when he started laughing. Laughter that would put the Joker to shame it was so manic. After a few minutes the man sighed and said, "I was certain I had broken you, perhaps a few more days."

Jason slowly stopped laughing and asked, "Do you believe in Hell?"

The man frowned and pushed up his glasses, the kind with the round lenses, and said, "I don't think whether I believe in God has anything to do with ever-lasting life."

Jason let out a little laugh and said, "God? Who said anything about God? No I asked whether you believe in hell."

The man frowned and asked, "What are you getting at?"

Jason said, "You want to know how I came back or not?"

The man narrowed his eyes and said, "My superiors do, yes. Very well, I suppose I do believe in hell? What does that have to do with your resurrection?"

Jason leaned as far forward as he could and said, "I may have done many bad things but when I died, I still had innocent eyes."

The man pursed his lips, like he was going to object, but Jason said, "Look into my eyes, and tell me you don't believe me, tell me I don't have innocent eyes."

The man seemed to be on the verge of walking out, but something in Jason's tone must have swayed him because he took off his glasses and stood so he was at Jason's height, and for the first time he looked Jason directly into those sweet baby blues… only when he did look, they weren't blue.

Everything was blurry, with red around the edges, and he wasn't even sure if he could see his hand when he waved it in front of his face. He wasn't exactly sure how he had gotten out, or how he had gotten the rags he was wearing, he wasn't even sure how he was even standing. He was hurting, so even though he knew all the bats where away and even though he hadn't been there since before he died, he went to the one place he had ever called home, Wayne Manor.

He couldn't see, but his other senses where going into overdrive. Finally he wandered to a street that had the familiar stink of a certain Vendor that sold every food you could think to put on a stick, from pickles to corndogs to catfish. From there it was a few miles uphill to Wayne Manor. He didn't know what he was expecting when he opened the front door with the key he had hidden in the front paneling, but he hadn't expected to be greeted with a shocked, "Master Jason!"

He didn't know why he was so surprised to hear Alfred's voice, but that was all it took for him to finally let go, and he collapsed right there in the entrance hall.


	2. Chapter 2

The entire bat clan, after each individually receiving messages from Alfred requesting they come to the Manor for an emergency meeting without actually saying what it was all for, rushed back to Gotham from where-ever they had been. Even Bruce, who had been off-world with Superman investigating some plant, made it back home to Wayne Manor less than six hours after talking with Alfred, and by the time he walked into the Bat-cave, with Superman at his side, because the blasted Kryptonian had refused to stay behind, it wasn't just the bat-family in the bat-cave, Somehow practically all of the top Hero's were there, no-one could ever remember Alfred calling an emergency meeting before, so this had to be big news for the hero world.

Batman had just started to give some of the Meta-human's his patented death Glare when Alfred arrived at the top of the stairs and said, "Good, everyone's here. I'm sorry, but with everything's that happened I have not had the chance to bake any cookies."

Most of the Bat-family looked like someone had just said something even they hadn't thought of, even Batman looked a little wide-eyed as he asked, "What happened?"

When Alfred sighed and took a brittle seat on one of the few chairs ever to survive more than a few days in the bat-cave, the entire Bat family acted like someone hat just shot at them. Alfred sighed and said, "At approximately two fifteen on Monday afternoon, there was a small security breach here at the Manor."

When Alfred paused Bart said, "You called a meeting for a security breach?"

Batman gave Bart such a fierce glare that the poor boy let out a squeak and bolted out of the cave. Alfred sighed, like a man who was very tired and continued, "You'll imagine my surprise when Master Jason entered via the front door and promptly collapsed."

There was a moment of silence, broken when Dick asked, "Jason? Our Jason?"

Alfred nodded and Bart, who had just zipped back in, asked, "Who's Jason?"

Connor, who was standing next to Bart, punched him in the arm and said, "Jason Todd, The secant Robin."

Bart frowned and said, "Oh, isn't he that villain, the Red Hood?"

Several people scowled at Bart, Batman looked like he was ready to kill the boy, and luckily Wally stepped forward and said, "We'll just step outside for a little bit." Before grabbing his nephew by the shoulder and zipping out.

Dick turned to Alfred and asked, "What was Jason doing here?"

Alfred looked up at Dick with solemn eyes, but before he could even open his mouth to speak, a female voice came from the stairs, "Bruce, I'm afraid Jason broke your record."

Tim blurted, "Dr. Thomas?"

The woman with slightly graying black hair and clear signs of exhaustion smiled, and Bruce asked, "Is Jason alright?"

Dr. Thomas's smile faltered and she said, "I'm not quite certain yet. I've managed to stabilize him but I'm afraid I'm not sure how he's still alive, I've never had to use so many stitches on one person before, nor have I ever had to set so many broken bones in one sitting."

There was a few moments of silence, several of the heroes looked a bit upset by the news. Finally Batman asked, "What happened?"

Dr. Thomas sighed and said, "I'm afraid I can't tell you much other than the fact that Jason was very clearly tortured by an expert, I don't know of anyone who could inflect that much pain without actually killing someone."

Tim said, "Other than the Joker I don't know of anyone crazy enough to actually torture someone in the Bat family, let alone anyone with that kind of training."

The Bat computer beeped, and suddenly the white mask of the Oracle appeared on the screen before being replaced with a woman's face. Dick asked, "Babs?"

The woman smiled and said, "Good you're all here, Bruce, I know how you are about security, but from what I just found out this is probably going to involve everyone who's present."

Batman frowned for a secant before nodding for her to continue. Bab's nodded her head and said, "Alfred called me right after he called Dr. Thomas, since I was the only one on duty. At first I was just trying to find out what happened to Jason, and that's actually how I stumbled onto this whole mess."

Bab's hit a few keys, and on the monitor an image of what appeared to be a medieval cup appeared. Babs sighed and said, "This is the symbol for a group, they call themselves the eternal, and it actually took me a few hours to hack there system. Their numbers are in the millions, World Wide, but only a few hundred elite members with slightly shady backgrounds have access to their sight. Apparently this group is really old, they date back to before the knights of the Holy Grail, and they all are looking for, you guessed it, eternal life."

Batman frowned and asked, "How exactly are they connected with Jason?"

The image of the cup disappeared and Bab's looked really exhausted as she said, "Apparently word got out that Jason came back, and a few months ago their was a big fuss over it. It looks like several somebody's where stalking Jason and somehow they got a hold of both of the Autopsy reports, and also Jason's medical records. What I found really disturbing is that there are over eight different Camera feeds of Jason for the last month…"

Bab's looked like she was about to be sick, and Tim asked, "They filmed him being tortured?"

Bab's nodded and said, "Bruce, I'm sending it to you, because maybe you can catch something I couldn't, especially since I couldn't stomach certain parts, but… I don't think Jason would really want anyone watching this. Although, I do think you all should watch the last few minutes or so… I'm not sure exactly what happened."

Bruce frowned, but before he could say anything Bab's said, "A day before the feed ends the guy hooked Jason to a drip, and after that almost nothing happens for almost twenty four hours… he just hangs there… I think you should all see the last few minutes recorded, maybe you can identify the man questioning Jason, or tell me what the hell happened."

Batman looked like he wanted to protest but before he could say anything Babs had hit a few keys and on the screen a crystal clear image of what was very obviously a dungeon with a clear image of Jason's naked upper-body, which didn't have an inch of flesh that wasn't broken and bleeding. Those who knew Jason where more horrified by the defeated posture than anything. A middle age man with slightly graying hair, wearing a very nice suite, walked in and Jason didn't try to lift his head, he didn't insult the man, he almost didn't react at all except to flinch and then shutter in obvious pain. Jason seamed to react a little when the man pulled up a chair, and when he looked up, his baby blues where filled with pain and fear.

When the man finally settled down on his seat with his little pad and paper he asked, "Jason, how did you come back from the dead?"

The following Manic laughter had everyone on edge, even those who didn't know Jason, or the Joker. For those who knew Jason, for the Bat-family, who could read every jerk of Jason's body, who knew first hand that it didn't matter how flexible you where, your arms just weren't meant to bend that direction.

Even those who weren't as well trained as the Bats could see the angry look on the man's face as he said crisply, "I was certain I had broken you, perhaps a few more days."

They watched as the slightly hysterical laughter bubbled down, and Jason's baby blues seemed to actually fix on the man for the first time, "Do you believe in Hell?"

The man frowned in obvious agitation and pushed up his glasses as he said, in a clear warning, "I don't think whether I believe in God has anything to do with ever-lasting life."

The Jason on the screen let out a little laugh and said, "God? Who said anything about God? No I asked whether you believe in hell."

The man frowned in mistrust and confusion as he asked, "What are you getting at?"

Jason looked like he had completely forgotten his pain as he tilted his head to the side and said, "You want to know how I came back or not?"

The man narrowed his eyes and said, "My superiors do, yes. Very well, I suppose I do believe in hell? What does that have to do with your resurrection?"

Jason leaned forward, and there was a snapping noise and the few present that had experience a dislocated shoulder shuddered in inner sympathy as Jason said, "I may have done many bad things but when I died, I still had innocent eyes."

The man pursed his lips, like he was going to object, like he was certain Jason was lying as Jason said, "Look into my eyes, and tell me you don't believe me, tell me I don't have innocent eyes."

Every Hero in the room saw the change, it would have been obvious even if the quality of the image hadn't been so great, and the lighting hadn't been illuminating his face perfectly, the only part of him that wasn't covered in battered flesh. His eyes slowly shifted, the baby blue slowly being filled in by blood red, and that's where suddenly the image cut off.

Bab's came back onto screen and said, "That was about two hours before Jason showed up at the Mansion, so whatever he did just then with his eyes is probably how he escaped. There are lots of comments on it, and some people think that Jason isn't human and it was a waist of funds."

Dr. Thomas said, "I can assure you that Jason is human, and I might be able to explain the red hue to his eyes." When everyone had turned to face her, even Bab's on the computer, she said, "When I first got here, there was a lot of blood, but as you probably noticed on the video, he has practically no injuries on his face or head. He had blood all over his face when I arrived, since there wasn't any major wounds I moved on, but when I finally returned to his face there was even more blood, it had to be coming from somewhere. It took me quite some time to realize that the blood was actually coming from his eyes, his tear-ducts to be precise."

There was a moment of silent before Dick asked, "So he was crying blood?"

Dr. Thomas nodded and said, "Haemolacria, It's very rare, the few patients who have had it where a few women who were having some hormone problems in relation to their pregnancies and one man who had a tumor in the region of his tear duct, there have been a few other cases where it was the result of environment, but clearly none of these apply to Jason. The only thing I can think of is that it could possibly be genetic."

Tim frowned and asked, "Wouldn't someone have noticed if it was genetic?"

Dr. Thomas asked, "When have you ever seen Jason cry? It took two weeks of torture for him to reach the point of tears, and I've talked with his childhood therapist who was assigned to Jason when he was a child, he said the kid never cried, didn't even know what he was talking about when he said it was okay if he did."

Dick laughed and said, "Jason had a therapist, seriously? Bet Jason was unstable even then."

Dr. Thomas sighed and said, "Social services forced the issue after Jason witnessed several violent crimes, Dr. Evans only saw him for year before he was put on the back burner because of you."

Dick squeaked out, "Me! What did I do?"

Tim sighed and said, "Dick, that all happened before you even came to Gotham."

Dick looked a bit confused and it was then that Wally asked, "What sort of violent crimes?"

Batman said, "There was a fire and those files were lost."

Bart went wide-eyed and said, "Oh my gosh, Batman doesn't even know and he took the kid in. What ells don't you know about him?"

Batman glared and said, "I don't know how he came back."

Bart frowned and asked, "Are you sure he really died?"

Tim elbowed Bart in the ribs and said, "There were two separate autopsy reports and they both concur."

Everyone was a bit surprised when Connor said, "He knows."

Bart zipped away from Tim and asked, "Who know what?"

Connor gave Bart a small glare and said, "When the guy asked him how he came back, I could tell, he knew."

Bart frowned and asked, "If he knew why didn't he just tell him?"

Connor frowned and said, "I don't know, but he's waking up, we should go ask him."

Before either of them could move to implement that when Dick and Tim stepped in their way. Bart started to speed around them but Wally put a hand on his shoulder as Stephanie asked, "Are you stupid."

Bab's added on, "He wouldn't talk after being tortured for two weeks, what makes you think he'll answer you when he very obviously doesn't like either of you."

Tim crossed his arms and said, "I might not always like Jason, but he's our brother, and if you two can't respect that, if you can't at least sympathies with the obvious victim, than you both don't deserve to be anywhere near the Justice League"

Connor looked like a dog who had just been kicked, and Bart didn't look much better as he made little stunned noises. Dick said, "What if that had been Tim, or me, or Bruce. We're human and that could have been any one of us in that room."

Once that was settled, Dr. Thomas said, "If Jason really is awake, one of us should go check on him."

Tim said, "I think you and Alfred should go check on him, if Jason knew we were all here he'd probably try to leave even if he can't stand."


End file.
